Harvey Weinstein's Attorney Says 'His Whole Life Has Been Ruined'
Harvey Weinstein’s attorney is worried about his client’s future after multiple allegations of sexual assault and harassment against him
Harvey Weinstein has been accused of sexual assault and harassment by more than 70 women during his time as a producer in Hollywood and yet, his attorney laments that his “whole life has been ruined.” Despite the scores of women that have accused Weinstein of sexual abuse, because of statutes of limitations, only two women accusing the disgraced mogul will take him to trial early next year. According to Weinstein’s lawyer Donna Rotunno, this is all very unfortunate for Mr. Weinstein.
Weinstein has stood by his innocence and Rotunno is confident that he’ll be exonerated, but added that even if he is cleared of all charges, his life is still “ruined.”
“No matter what happens to Harvey Weinstein, he will pay the biggest price there is. Even if he wins… his whole life has been ruined, toppled, damaged,” Rotunno told Gayle King in a CBS This Morning interview.
King pointedly reminded Rotunno that Weinstein “needs to take responsibility for his actions and the choices he makes,” to which Rotunno said, “whether it’s by his own doing or others, that’s the fact. And the fact is that no matter what we do — and we can walk out of that courtroom with a ‘not guilty’ and walk him out onto those courtroom steps, and he never gets to be Harvey Weinstein ever again.”
Not surprisingly, the internet doesn’t exactly share Rotunno’s empathy for Weinstein.
The watershed New York Times article that exposed Weinstein is credited with launching the #MeToo movement in general and Rotunna has some controversial views about that as well.
“Anytime we talk about men and women in sexual circumstances, I think we have to look at the fact that there’s always an area of gray,” Rotunno said. “So there’s these blurred lines, and then sometimes, one side walks away from an event feeling different than the other.”
So, I guess Rotunno thinks that going to a meeting with Weinstein for a potential job offer only to find that it’s in his hotel room and he’s wearing a robe and he wants you to give him a massage is a “sexual circumstance” and not like, a woman blindsided by what she thought was a job interview. Huh.
Rotunno doubled down on Weinstein’s damaged image, claiming that it’s the #MeToo movement’s fault for ruining his life.
“What bothers me about Me Too — it allows the court of public opinion to take over the narrative,” she added. “And when you can’t come out and then either correct or challenge that narrative, it puts you in a position where you’re stripped of your rights.”
At the end of the day, the “court of public opinion” didn’t ruin Weinstein’s life. Harvey Weinstein did that to himself.
